Full Description
This three-volume anthology comprises diverse intellectual responses to the Hamas-organised day of murder, sexual violence and kidnapping.
Responses to 7 October: Antisemitic Discourse focuses on the ideology that motivated it and the antisemitism that shaped many responses to it. It examines the provenance of the Jew-hatred, from English history to Palestinian Islamism; from toxic 19th century 'Jewish Question' rhetoric to the perversion of the Trotskyist tradition that allowed parts of the left to embrace antisemitism. It includes Howard Jacobson's lecture of 22 October on antisemitism and it focuses on what was significant about this attack. There is discussion from Britain, Germany, Poland, and Norway, and a linguistic account of responses.
Responses to 7 October: Law and Society begins with a legal, and a genocide studies critique of the claim that Israel is genocidal; another reflects on the absence of an understanding of antisemitism in international legal discourse. There are reflections on experiences in the Palestine solidarity movement and on the twists that discourse there takes. Contributions draw on Judaism, feminism, and sociology to face what happened and to trace how Israelis were transported back to a quintessentially pre-Israel Jewish experience. Others survey reports of antisemitism around the globe in the wake of 7 October, including pieces about Britain and Germany.
Responses to 7 October: Universities focuses on the heartland of contemporary antisemitic thinking, which is scholarship; and its reflection in student discourse on campus. Contributions go back to Sartre and to debates of Marx's time; another looks at the New Left forged in the civil rights movement, and shows how antisemitic responses to the 2023 violence were anticipated by some of the responses to the 1967 Arab League aggression. The feminist movement and 'progressives' more generally come under scrutiny, and there is analysis of antisemitism on campus after 7 October, showing how it is tolerated and protected there; including in archaeological attempts to deny that there is an ancient Jewish history in Israel.
As a set or individually, these important volumes will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel.
Contents
Responses to 7 October: Antisemitic Discourse
Introduction Editor's Note 1. What has changed? 2. 7 October and the precariousness of being Jewish 3. Introduction to Howard Jacobson's chapter The text of Howard Jacobson's LCSCA Robert Fine Memorial Lecture, 22 October 2023 4. The Ideology of Mass Murder 5. Echoes of the Past: Understanding Today's Antisemitism Through a Medieval Lens 6. Where are Jews at home? 7. Disenchanting Palestine: Moralism and Hyperpolitics in the aftermath of October 7th 8. 'Little Short of Lunatics': Post-Trotsky Trotskyism and the radical Left's degenerate response to 7 October 9. October Reflections: Antisemitism, Antizionism and the Jewish Question 10. The German Press, Israel, and October 7, 2023: Initial research findings on reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 11. The King's "No": Anti-Israelism and antisemitism in Norway after the 7 October massacre 12. A View from the "Second World": Holocaust and Colonialism in Contemporary Contexts of Eastern Europe 13. 'It's all about context': Antisemitism in the discursive space post 7 October
Responses to 7 October: Law & Society
Foreword: 'My grandmother was killed in a pogrom. Then my daughter was, too' Introduction Editor's Note 1. International Law and the Conflict in Gaza 2. The Holocaust, Genocide, and October 7th 3. International Law Is Not Antisemitism-Proof 4. 'But Israel claims to be a democracy!' - Hypocrisy, double standards, and false equivalences 5. A Visit to Kibbutz Kfar Azza, November 28, 2023: Reflections on the Jewish Present and the Jewish Past 6. From the River to the Sea 7. Indecent Jewish theology, post October 7th: the G-d of the bathroom floor 8. Collective Trauma and Resilience for the Jewish People in the Aftermath of 7th October 9. After the Pogrom: A shift in the Jewish Configuration 10. Global Leaders, Experts Must Reject Surging Antisemitism and Affirm Jews' Equal Rights 11. Antisemitic Reactions to October 7: The German Case 12. The worst month in my lifetime for UK antisemitism
Responses to 7 October: Universities
Introduction Editor's Note 1. 'A Tool to Advance Imperial Interests': Leftist Self-Scrutiny and Israeli Wrongdoing 2. Thinking with and against Sartre about Reactions to the October 7th Pogrom 3. The rise and rise of the 'Israel Question' 4. Jewish "Whiteness" and its Effects in the Aftermath of October 7 5. A History of Feminist Antisemitism 6. The Return of the Progressive Atrocity 7. Rain of Ashes Over Elite American Universities 8. The Professors and the Pogrom: How the theory of 'Zionist Settler Colonialism' reframed the 7 October massacre as 'Liberation' 9. October 7 and the Antisemitic War of Words 10. Ancient Historians Embrace Debunked Conspiracy Theories Denying that Jews are Indigenous to Israel 11. From Eighteenth-Century Germany to Contemporary Academia: Combating the Conspiracy Theory of Antisemitism in Scholarship
